


Loser's Mailbag

by mmmdraco



Category: Daria (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin gets two pieces of mail that change a lot of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loser's Mailbag

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Daria. I mean no harm. I am merely engaging in shenanigans.

"Kevin! Go get the mail!" Charlene Thompson yelled to her son as she opened a beer for her husband, Doug.

"Mmm... Okay, Mom!" Kevin got to his feet and jogged out the front door. He grabbed a stack of mail from the box on the curb and brought it into the kitchen. Sorting it out, he found a letter for him from his doctor, and a letter to his parents from Lawndale High. He slid both of them under his jersey and tucked then into the waistband of his pants. 

Not seeing his parents around, Kevin tried to quietly climb the stairs, but his father heard him and turned away from the game on TV momentarily. "Kevin, get down here and watch the game with me!"

"Uh, sorry, Dad. I've got homework I need to do." Kevin grinned and started to walk up the stairs again.

"Screw that. You can do it later." Kevin winced as he heard his dad slap the couch next to him. "C'mon!"

"Um, it's a lot. My... my English teacher isn't letting me have a bye on the next test, so I really gotta read this book."

"I should go down to the school and have a talk with that teacher of yours."

"Nah. I got this, Dad. I just gotta show him once that I can do this and then he'll leave me alone." He paused. "Besides, there's only, like, two brains in the class, so it shouldn't be too hard to show the rest of them up."

"Good. There's time for learning things when you're in college playing ball. For now, you only thing I wanna see you reading is the playbook. Got it?"

"Got it, Dad." Kevin felt his steps getting heavier as he made his way up to his room. He sat on his bed and pulled out the two envelopes. His heart heavy, he opened the one to his parents first. He took a deep breath in as his eyes skimmed the lines, trying to make sense of the words. They seemed to swirl around him and cut off his oxygen. He'd been doing his damnedest to learn the material once his teachers stopped letting him have byes, but it was too little, too late. He'd failed his senior year. No graduation, no scholarship to a big football school, no future as a politician or a sports bar owner... If only his dad hadn't kept him so focused on football, he might have been able to find some time to learn how to study. Granted, he could usually count on Daria to help him if he really needed it because she was pretty nice for a brain, but he didn't like to ask for help. He was the QB! The QB was supposed to lead. But he wasn't a leader anymore, he realized. Today had been the last game of the season, with an early home game. They hadn't won enough to make it to the playoffs, so that was it. Game over. Loser: Kevin Thompson.

Kevin wanted to run down the stairs and strangle his father. He'd always been pushed to focus on football because that's what he was good at. Ever since peewee league, he'd always been pretty good at the sport. He wasn't as big as some of the other guys, sure, but he was fast and his size actually made it where he could change direction better than a lot of the bigger guys. But even since he'd shown that he was good at sports, his father made it pretty clear that if he didn't focus on that, there would be trouble. And Kevin didn't want trouble. He'd seen his dad get angry before. It was the time Kevin brought home an A on a paper in 8th grade, and then fumbled twice at the game that night. His dad hadn't hit him, but he'd hit the wall hard enough behind him that his mom had to call a repair guy the next day and they had to get the carpet cleaned from where a fine Sheetrock powder was embedded in it. And the time he came home early from practice to start working on a book report, his dad had yelled a lot, but his mom stuck up for him. But when he saw her later, she was holding a bag of frozen peas to her face and telling Kevin to just do what his dad said. So he did the bare minimum amount of work in school and practiced football until the only thing in his head was a never-ending litany of play calls and a tiny corner devoted to what was going on in his day-to-day life.

Brittany wouldn't understand, he knew. They were dating each other for the ease of it. They didn't even like each other that much, but it was better than being alone, or having nothing but one night stands. And that brought him to the second envelope. There had been a party a few weeks ago, and Brittany had broken up with him, but his dad still expected him to go to the party since the team was there. So he went, and Marcia Whittaker was there. She'd been the first girl he'd had sex with, and as much as he knew he shouldn't, he found himself in the laundry room with her. One thing had led to another, and she had gone down on him as though it were nothing more than a handshake. But a few days later, just as Brittany was beginning to let him talk to her again, things had started to hurt, well, when he peed. Both of his parents had drilled into him that his body was a temple, and that if there was anything wrong at all, then he should get it looked at by Dr. Stevenson. So he'd gone in. He was weighed and measured, his blood pressure taken, his urine sample given, and then he was sitting covered in a paper gown for 15 minutes waiting on his doctor. And within minutes, Kevin learned more about sex than any of his parents' speeches or the barely-there sex ed class at school had taught him. He wasn't sure he ever wanted to touch a girl again, and now he was on some super-antibiotic. Not that it would matter now since Brittany wouldn't want to be with a second-year senior with no more prospects on the horizon.

He tore open the envelope and read the test results. Dr. Stevenson had seen enough to be able to give him the meds, but wanted a second lab test, and this was it. Gonorrhea. The clap. Tears came to Kevin's eyes as he clutched two pieces of paper in his hands. He really wished that he had the brains to know how to fix this all and make it go away. He wished that it seemed like an easy thing to tell one person. But he wasn't even to the point where he could tell himself yet. Hi, I'm Kevin Thompson... and I'm a lo... loooo.... loser.


End file.
